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Viswanathan Anand is World champ again

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Anand prevailed over older rival Boris Gelfand of Israel, 43, via a tiebreaker to assert his supremacy in match play and in the process made a mockery of the rating system in the game which has 22-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway at the top , 28-yearold Levon Aronian of Armenia at No. 2 and teenager Fabiano Caruana of Italy at No 8.

With players making the Grandmaster cut at the age of 12 or 13, chess is increasingly being seen as a young man's game. But Viswanathan Anand's victory on Wednesday at the age of 42 has renewed the debate on whether age has anything to do with performance. (AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

Anand prevailed over older rival Boris Gelfand of Israel, 43, via a tiebreaker to assert his supremacy in match play and in the process made a mockery of the rating system in the game which has 22-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway at the top , 28-yearold Levon Aronian of Armenia at No. 2 and teenager Fabiano Caruana of Italy at No 8. (AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

Anand's triumph would also probably bring back the debate over the traditional match play format being out of fashion, with younger players finding it boring and unwieldy. It doesn't really matter. It is a tribute to Anand's prowess that he has mastered a format that he was not comfortable with when he was a young player himself and managed to stay on top even when the youth brigade overtook him in the ratings list over the past 12 months. (AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

"I am relieved," Anand said after the match in Moscow. He refused to admit that he was the favourite to win the rapid tiebreaker games. "I knew I would get my chances but I don't think I was the favourite when the games started." (AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

So what is the next stage for the fivetime World champion ? He will most probably play his next title contest at home , maybe in Chennai next year, and will have to contend with opponents in their 20s. Is age catching up with him? "Chess is a very strenuous sport . You can see that the top players are getting younger all the time," Anand told TOI during the match. "W e have Magnus (Carlsen ) and (Fabiano ) Caruana in the top 10." (AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev)